The invention relates to a process for producing spreadable butter with a reduced fat content from choice grade or table butter, a first aqueous phase with a slightly acid buffer substance and a second aqueous phase with milk proteins.
A butter is described as choice grade butter, also known as special table butter, if it has been produced in an extremely careful manner from pasteurized, centrifugally separated cream, generally with addition of lactic acid bacteria cultures and after appropriate ripening, and is distinguished by superior quality and a long shelf life. Firms which produce or improve and sell special butter are generally subjected to bacteriological/chemical inspections by official laboratories. A special butter factory has continuously to observe the legal limits for the fat content, the degree of acidity and the table salt content. Furthermore, the standards for shelf life and biological and organoleptic testing have to be complied with.
Table butter is butter which is produced from pasteurized, centrifugally separated cream, in open vat-ripened cream or wheycream, and is also perfect with respect to smell and taste.
Whether they are to be used as a spread for bread or in the kitchen, choice grade and table butter are a valuable addition to staple foods. They both essentially contain more than 80% by weight of butter fat, usually 83% by weight. Butter fat contains numerous saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Physically, butter is a water-in-oil emulsion.
Although butter plays an important role as a food owing to its digestibility, its taste, and its provision of essential fatty acids, the high calorie content is often feared. Therefore, there is currently a trend to produce and offer butters with fewer calories. However, this gives rise to obstacles not only with respect to production but also with respect to taste and not least legislation, because butter and products derived from it have to meet particularly high requirements.
EP-A1 0062938 describes a water-in-oil emulsion based on butter fat, with a low calorie content, in which the lipid phase has a content of 30 to 80%, based on the total composition, and consists of an unsaturated solid butter fraction. The aqueous phase of the emulsion has a pH of 4.0 to 7.0 and makes up 20 to 70% of the total composition. According to a particular embodiment, the low melting point fraction which is obtained from butter fat at a temperature of 20.degree. to 30.degree. C. is used.
EP-A1 0098663 describes a process for producing a spread for bread in which cream, an oil-in-water emulsion, is firstly produced. This cream contains 35 to 70% of an aqueous phase and 25 to 65% of fat with a specific solids profile. The cream is then churned at a temperature which allows the fat to exist, at least in part, in crystallized form, while avoiding an air/water interface. This increase in the viscosity allows at least partial phase reversal, producing a spread for bread which has substantially the same fat content as the cream used as educt. This spread for bread contains a network of coherent fat and enclosed as well as free aqueous phase. A spread for bread of the appropriate composition is also claimed. Skimmed milk and butter fat are mentioned in addition to other components of non-animal origin as starting materials for the production of the cream emulsion.
According EP-A1 0098664, an oil-in-water emulsion is firstly produced from a fat-containing phase and an aqueous solution for producing a spread for bread from a water-in-oil emulsion having a fats content of at most 60%. This emulsion is then shaken vigorously and cooled, coated agents which have been coated internally with a hydrophobic material or have been produced from a hydrophobic material being used to crystallize out the fat and to obtain a spread from a water-in-oil emulsion. Dairy cream is mentioned as an example of the starting material consisting of an oil-in-water emulsion. For producing the oil-in-water emulsion, skimmed milk is heated to 60.degree. C. and melted butter as well as other additives are added. After pasteurization, cooling and stirring, the cooled mass is converted into a water-in-oil emulsion in a crystallizing vessel filled with butter fat at 18.degree. to 20.degree. C. while applying very high shearing forces, so that phase reversal takes place.
The known processes for producing spreadable butter with a reduced fat content employ either only a butter fat fraction or cream emulsions of the oil-in-water type are firstly produced and are at least partially converted into water-in-oil emulsions.